Marcus Evans Scam: Fraud Complaints About Events and Sales Pitch
A couple of weeks ago, I got a call from a nice woman at Marcus Evans, a company that puts on events in a variety of industries. Her talk was scripted, but it sounded good.
I pay a fee to attend an event (they say it is not a conference or seminar, but a “summit”). At this event will be chief legal counsel for Fortune 1,000 companies who are looking for service providers with various specialties. Marcus Evans says they match those executives in need of services with appropriate providers, pre-screening both so that they know it is a good potential match. Each person like myself who pays to attend is guaranteed 8 to 10 face-to-face meetings with these executives. (Which, of course, would be aimed at securing a new client for me.)
The first hint that something was off was when this caller said we shared some connections on LinkedIn. Surprise, surprise…. we shared exactly ZERO connections on LinkedIn.
A week later I got the same call, this time from a man at Marcus Evans, with a nearly identical script. This time, the seller was offering me this “opportunity” because someone had put down a $10,000 deposit and backed out of the event… Meaning that I could reserve a spot not for $49,500, but for the low low price of $39,500. Lucky me!
I had already researched the company by the time the second script-reader called me, so I knew what the deal was. And I let him know!
If you want to find out if others have complaints about this alleged scam being run by Marcus Evans, good luck. Searches for terms like “marcus evans scam”, “marcus evans complaints”, and “marcus evans fraud” curiously return numerous websites that Marcus Evans created about their “fraud events” and such… clearly an attempt to dominate the search engine results for anything related to complaints about the company.
But if you can find your way to actual complaints, you can see some of the sales tactics the company uses. If you’ve listened carefully to the script-reader from Marcus Evans, you will undoubtedly recognize many of the hooks that they use to sell you on their events.
Complaints Board has a few complaints about the company, and this particular one mirrored my second call with the Marcus Evans salesperson:
I too received a telephone solitiation touting a conferance in Las Vegas that a unnamed competitor had just “backed out of their commitment and we can offer you a discount becuase they paid $5, 000 so the INVESTMENT is only $39, 900.” Nice try but after some digging in the internet I found this site with similar stories. Due to the amount of money we would never dive in without referances from other companies in our industry but we never got that far, we see what is here and realize just another version of the Nigerian scam. Stay away if you want to save yourself a lot of aggravation.
I’m not a fan of the site Rip-off Report, as I believe the site owner is engaged in a scam of his own. However, I don’t think the general public knows the background behind the site, and so I think their posted complaints are many times legitimate. Take a look at how many complaints are posted on Ripoff Report about Marcus Evans. And if you’ve ever gotten a call or two from Marcus Evans, then you can immediately spot similarities between your experience and those posted on the site.
It’s as if this complaint posting came directly from the second MarcusEvans sales person who called me:
By this I mean the rep will always always say that the only reason she is able to call you is because one of their existing clients either became insolvent (went out of business) or has a date conflict, and now has been forced to forfeit their deposit (of approximately $10,000) and now they are interviewing a small select handful of appropriate companies in your industry niche with your exact expertise to take over their client’s schedule of 30 prequalified face to face meetings AND also get to apply the forfeited deposit towards the booking of the next company who books on.
So they hook you with a made up rare discount opportunity that you think “other clients of theirs did not have the opportunity to take advantage of”, which is wrong. At the same time, this urgency forces your buying decision to be an emotional impulse decision because the sales rep will actually tell you that if you want to take the meetings then you will have to set up a call back later that day or the very next day within 24 hours. They get you to do this by deceptively lying claiming to already have scheduled calls with your competitors who are already very very interested in taking the final block of meetings.
This MarcusEvans summit complaint lays out the script that was used on me both times:
If you receive a phone call from a marcus evans employee, you might here something like this:
* = Lie, false scenario, or outrageous exaggeration
Hi, my name is __________ with the ”your industry (ex: medical device)” group. I’m working* with a group of VPs, and SVPs, (your potential target market), coming from big organizations in North America. I work with people like: name dropping, name dropping, name dropping…..
And the reason why I’m calling you SPECIFICALLY* today is because our group is interested in a company that does WHAT YOU GUYS DO*.
… We work very closely with these executives to identify* specific purchasing objectives and requirements for upcoming projects for the coming year. Once they send that information* to us, what we do then is find common areas of demand within the group and then partner with organizations like yours in each area of demand to meet with our buyers. And this is done through a series of 1-1 business meetings designed to help our clients with their objectives.
We only work with a select group* of solution providers like you. *** The ONLY reason why I’m contacting you today is because:
Scenario 1): One of our existing* clients just asked us to transfer to our European Summit.
Scenario 2): One of our existing* clients is filing for chapter 11.
Scenario 3): One of our existing* clients didn’t use their upgrade option.
….or any other similar scenario where the “existing client”* forfited a deposit or had to pay a penalty of in between $5000 – $10 000.
NB. The “delegates”, “buyers”, or “executives” are being prospected like you. They don’t come on board because they are actively looking for solutions or suppliers.
They will then “drop the price” which is always in between $35 000 and $50 000 for 2 executives taking 20-30 one-on-one meetings.
And what about those meetings with chief legal officers who are looking for professionals like you? According to this complaint, they’re roped into coming for free or nearly free if they agree to “interview” a certain number of service providers.
Long story short: The Corporate counsel were also scammed to show up at the Summit. The went for free or for a very discounted price if they agreed to interview 6 to 8 legal venders. Most did not have any need for additional counsel. The in-house attorneys just wanted their CLE credit and a resort to visit.
Yes, you will meet many of the high-up IP counsel and perhaps decision makers from well known corporations. No, they were not carefully screened, nor did they work with anyone from Marcus Evans to determine if they really had any need for additional or new outside patent counsel for litigation, prosecution or contract work. I would bet that not a single IP attorney got a good solid lead toward new work. If anything is to be gained, it will occur in months and months of lead follow up, which most attorneys do anyway regardless of the CLE or IP convention they go to.
As with any opportunity to market my services, I recognize that there aren’t any guaranteed sales. But this all seemed too fishy when two people from the company called with similar scripts and bogus claims like “we have a mutual contact on LinkedIn.” If you have to lie about being connected on a social media site, what else are you lying about?
And why is it that I got a bad feeling about this whole set-up, and multiple complaints I saw on the internet mirrored my concerns and experience? You be the judge.
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Comments (37)
And it appears that THE Marcus Evans is a bit of a mystery himself, thanks to shady financial dealings!
http://unprofessionalfoul.com/2009/05/21/who-the-fck-is-marcus-evans/
I get those calls too. And I feel for the individuals making them. There are plenty of complaints out there from Marcus Evans employees as well. And there are similarly a mind boggling number of sites the company has created to push them down in the search rankings.
Interesting, isn’t it Chuck, the amount of time and effort the company went to in order to bully me into silence, and to create these sites to dominate search engine rankings and push down the criticism?
Its funny because I actually worked for Marcus Evans and I am the first one to tell it like it is! Believe me-I can say first hand the company does what it says it does. Now maybe the sales pitch from some can be a little “varied” like most sales companies but if you have ever been to one of their summits in IT, Pharm or whatever industry you know they get the people there and do what they say they can do!! I have no loyalties because I left the company (not on a good note) but I was always taught to say the right thing whether I like you or not and Marcus Evans is not a scam!!!!!
I believe they get people to their events. I also believe that they don’t tell the truth about HOW they get people there. They are lying to service providers like myself when they say that in-house counsel is looking for new service providers. The truth appears to be that in-house counsel is getting a free ride to the event if they agree to meet with some service providers…. with no actual intent to do business with those service providers.
If the events were actually creating new business for the service providers, Marcus Evans wouldn’t be pathetically cold calling all over the place. They’d have service providers as repeat attendees, and they’d also have a reputation for staging amazing events that service providers are dying to get into.
That’s obviously not the case, and so my guess is that the events are a colossal waste of money for the service providers, with a few isolated exceptions.
Miss Coenen, for a “professional” you sure do lack a substantial amount of integrity. Whether or not the company in question is a scam is irrelevant. What is relevant, however, is the fact that all of this is based upon two cold sales calls. There are countless accusations made, again, based upon nothing more than a scripted cold call. Do you write lengthy posts regarding every sales call you get? Do you think the other cold calls are not scripted?
Who cares if the company is a scam? This is not the issue. The issue here is that you, Miss Coenen, have created a site aimed at taking down fraudulent corporate behavior. Yet, as your evidence, you cite a PRIVATE BLOG.
I am no opponent of the First Amendment, but if you post a very publicized attack on a company, founded solely on a COLD CALL, they will respond. Maybe next time do your homework and get some real facts about the company before you make yourself into a public display of bad research and ethics.
P.S. There is tons out there about this company. Just do some research in other places besides random blogs.
Hi “Clyde” – Thanks for participating. I’m glad I have the chance to clear up some of your confusion. The basic premise of your comment is that it doesn’t matter if Marcus Evans is a scam or not. I disagree. That’s the whole point. I’m questioning whether there is some dishonesty in marketing this event.
You also seem to be confused about this blog. It’s just a blog. It’s not “aimed at taking down fraudulent corporate behavior.”
Finally, I didn’t call anything “evidence.” I did some research, and posted what I found on the negative side. Was there positive stuff about Marcus Evans on the internet? Yes! Almost all created by Marcus Evans themselves!!!
I think the thing that was most concerning to me was how Marcus Evans created hundreds of websites to dominate search engine rankings for fraud/complaints/scam and the name Marcus Evans. What are they trying to hide???
So thank you for your critique of my blog and my research, “Clyde.” I’m just glad you’re reading, along with the large number of others who are searching Google for “marcus evans scam” each day. I’m happy to be able to provide people with what I’ve found on the company.
As a former employee of Marcus Evans (SHAME) I can totally confirm you artiles as 100% accurate. This is exactly how M.E instructs its reps to sell. And you don’t know the half of it – they rip of ftheir own employees with bait-and-switch tactics in excatly the same fashion. They persuade you to relocate to a satellitee or start up office by telling you that you are to be groomed as the GM of that office and when you relocate down there you find 6 others have been tiold exactly the same thing. When they kicked me off to Barbados they told me I’d be on a higher salary than the locals and when I arrived send out a memo saying ALl staff are to be on local Barbados pay with immediate effect. These people are utter liars, crooks and thieves. Unfortunately people outside financial services and who do not have investor stock holders fall outside every regulatory umbrella and so consequently this is why fiendish crooks like Marcus Evans are not in prison. Pull these stunts in financial services or with inevstors money and that’s the end of you. Regulators must extend their powers to fly-by-nights and restrict such practices.
WAKE UP CLYDE
Well Clyde, I’m sorry if my post below embarrasses the hell out of you (Lord knows it should) but as you can see now, you don’t know what you are talking about (or else your from Marcus’ CRM department and yes I know Peter Laspas and Chriss Leese). It’s time for you to step back out of this and leave it to people like myself who DO know a lot about Marcus Evans and spent no mean amount of time there. I can also marshall contacts who complained to us in the office about exactly the same tactics. As for questions such as “Who cares if the company is a scam?” I would recommend you get your social responsibility in order.
I worked for Marcus Evans in 2008. It is a scam. They had us lie on all the phone calls and each one is recorded, but the people we were calling didn’t know it. The people who attend HAVE to meet with certain others there and get a free trip. The whole thing is a scam, and a joke. Marcus Evans himself should change his name since the company continues to run him and his identity into a hole. Everyone who worked in the NY office was either a drunk, cheat, or money-hungry liar. Quit after five weeks.
Hi guys,
i have been trained for two days in ME and one thing came into my mind …something was bothering me.i guessed something is wrong there.. I have 17 years of sales experience …and
while listening to those ‘instructors’ i noticed they exaggerate everything, and they are lying ..It was a kinda strange that for a number of salespeople they have only couple computers. On the first day of the sales training the instructor was too boring, however, i thought that might be his style, which sometimes happens. The other day, another instructor was the same kind of a boring guy i saw on a first day. Finally, when i heard the pitch of a sales person while entering the meeting room i concluded OMG!!! this is a sales model in this company. You know, these guys offering some cheap stuff like knives or whatever…No doubt I had to google this company and I am glad I have not mistaken. Thank you all of you guys for your comments. I made a right decision. ..
I am sure you are one of the sales manager or Assistant Sales manager that`s why you are on ME Side. I have been working for this company more than 3 years I was 5 times top sales within the office and in europe what I got at the end is middle finger.
This company purely capitalistic company where only company makes money not a employee. Usually they will tell you there will be 50 participant but in fact there is no even 20 participant. Stay Away People
OK – these stories will flood in a dime a dozen. To put it all in perspective with explanation I suggest readers click on the link for “Marcus Evans: Threats and Intimidation Continue” where following several years with the Company I set out its philosophies and cynicism that will explain all the above stories in the context of the global anti capitalism campaigns.
Now this takes me back. I used to be an ex employee of Marcus Evans. Have anyone seen the movie “Boiler Room”? Well if you heard their sales pitch and remember what the office looked like…well its exactly like that. I have to admit, I wasn’t a very confident person in speaking before Marcus Evans, and after I came out I have become a better speaker, and good in lying ofcorse. The company tells you how to lie, pretend you are some big shot CEO who has top shots clients from the industry looking for business. They make up number of delegates attending the conference or summit that u are pitching for etc etc.
And then there are these uneducated, “not so bright” managers that got their by sleeping with the seniors who can’t speak a line of english. They would sit at the top of the desk, fiddling with their cellphones and throw a leash at u if u urself pick up ur cellphn or even not pitch for even a second. And every week, they would have “Sales Meeting” where they would throw in lines from writers and ask you..”do u not want to earn this and that”?? But the only reason they do this is so they could earn that over-ride from ur sales. I have seen 2 managers across the table even bitch fight with each other over who got the deal first from the same client.
Nice one JC. Very familiar. How about the THG Sports Hospitality Manager who whited-out the names of the sales reps who had been lucky enough to do a $40-60,000 deal, write her own name on it and submit the deal as her own? All happened while I was there. News only broke after the hapless sales rep had left.
Directors are little better – the Australian one in Berlin decides to rape one of his staff in the conference hotel bedroom and an out-of-court settlement was agreed to shut her up and protect the company. Yes, it actually happened – around 2009 I think (at least that’s when news of it spread around the management at the Chicago office where I was working).
Before that I was in LA where the COO had to keep flying to Sydney to attend a Court Case. I got curious and asked the GM what was going on. Apparently Mr Evans had in the year 2000 been instructing his sales staff to sell corporate hospitality tickets to the America’s Cup yacht race. He took A$12 million off unsuspecting companies promising them a luxury yacht in the Sydney Harbour etc etc. They were all dumped and stranded in the Australian desert as Marcus ran off with all their money and never delivered anything. Real nice people.
Bernie Madoff’s mistake was that he operated in financial markets with investor’s cash. That brings you under the scope of the regulators. Yet in industries like events nobody ever scrutinizes anyone. Regulators are so blinkered they think fraud, rip-offs and so on are only ever committed by financial service companies. There is nothing to stop conference organizers from over-selling and under deliveruing or not delivering at all. Marcus Evans shows just how badly this kind of policing is needed. I do realize that free enterprise works best without being stifled by too much red tape and rules but at the same time if you don’t have it you just get an explosion of con men. That’s why Marcus Evans is not [yet] in prison where he jolly well ought to be.
Okay, my company attended another financial show and a fellow attendee told us they raised a lot of dough at at ME event. I was going to call them today and found all this negative stuff instead. I can play hard-ball with them and get what I want, but the big observation/question for me is do the attendees get results? One would think not with all of the negativity, but this particular company says they’ve done really well and attend many events. I don’t believe everything I read, but where there is smoke there is fire. I’m certain this is a boiler room, they are liars, etc…totally believe that, but do clients get results?
If so, then don’t understand the toxic sales practices; hence the reason I need to ask what everyone else has heard. Thanks.
J
I have a question of my own.
If these events were so effective for the people paying $40,000 to $50,000 to attend, wouldn’t Marcus Evans have lots of repeat attendees? Why does Marcus Evans have these boiler rooms of representatives cold calling (and misrepresenting themselves in the process, at least to me) and using questionable tactics to get people to sign contracts? Wouldn’t there be word of mouth, too, if the events are so good?
Have you seen ANYONE put their name behind an endorsement for Marcus Evans, stating that they’ve generated a bunch of new business from these events? All I’ve seen are some canned, anonymous, promotional, sketchy-looking websites that claim the events are great. I’ve never actually seen a client with a real name, face, and reputable company come forward with an endorsement of Marcus Evans stating they’ve gotten financial results from these events.
Jeremy
Probability demands than even with a poorly run event which is underfunded (because the organiser inists on 60% profits) someone is bound to get lucky. Before Marcus Evans I once worked at a dodgy B2B publishing house. Their reference books and magazines were barely distributed at all, some falling apart in your hands and the company eventually shut down during good economic times and yet we sold ad space bragging about worldwide distribution to all the major players. One of my aerospace ads said he got business off it. I was amazed but sooner or later it will happen.
The fact that some lucky vendor just happened to bump into the perfect prospect delegate at such an event says nothing about the organiser’s integrity. Marcus Evans runs 1000 events per year which means tens of thousands of delegates swirling around thousands of vendors. Somebody’s bound to connect sooner or later. The fact is that 95% of the others are unimpressed or absolutely outraged – especially sponsors and vendors.
What the gargantuan Marcus Evans propaganda machine done is seize upon the one guy who gets lucky and blasts it all around the place trying to make out everyone feels the same way.
All dissent is suppressed – as Tracy’s articles illustrate.
Tracy
In answer to your query staff use such tactics partly because that is the company culture laid down to satisfy Marcus’ utter ruthlessness and secondly because very few people are around long enough to get repeat business and thirdly those that do on the vendor side are rewarded with only half the normal commission rate if and when they repeat someone.
Lastly, and this is especially with the sports hospitality business, managers frequently steal their reps’ clients, or even fire them and take their clients. Sales reps in these wings of the company are unknowingly building up their managers’ portfolios. The pay is so bad for doing these deals they most often quit and the manager grabs all their clients.
You also have to understand that many Marcus Evans events are so under-attended the EVENT is not repeated (or even cancelled with no-one getting their money back of course, just a credit to another useless event). Limited opportunity for repeat business or vendors securing business then, isn’t there?
As I said in reply to Jeremy’s 4 January post I am sure sooner or later someone will do business out of a chance encounter with the right person – probablity demands it with 1000 events even if under-attended and poorly run for the sake of 60% profits – and so they have but these instances are very rare and Marcus Evans goes marketing-ballistic whenever it occurs and makes out it is the norm. Its propaganda machine is relentless.
But no after 13 years of largely vendor and event sponsorship sales and having done over $2m of such business I can honestly say I never encountered one sponsor to whom I had sold a sponsorship that acquired any business or tangible commercial reward from any of the 80 or so events I sold them into, no. I did get a lot of outrage and demands for money back because of lousy venues, venues not as promised, poor facilities, adminsitrative incompetence, refusing basic office services on site, failure to provide post event materials – every complaint you could think of.
Repeat business was extremely difficult. Your best chance of it was if the contact person at the client company had since left and was replaced by someone unaware but who feels safer keeping things as before while they’re in their first year of the job so as not to rock the boat.
Dear Tracy,
Thank you very much for the information. I was offered an interview with Marcus Evans and was all ready to discount the fact that there might be some(actually a lot) of disgruntled employees lashing back at Marcus Evans.
Now that I have attended the interview, things became clear. It is similar to the kind of dishonesty that is used to sell the event seats. They offered a different position on the web and told a different thing in the interview and that you must start as sales executive.
I felt very uncomfortable with the fact that they needed to “sell” the position instead of being realistic with the environment etc. I have known one or two organisations like this.
Thanks to you, I have decided to give it up. I am keen on sales but I am definitely not doing it at Marcus Evans.
SMART MOVE – PHOENIX
Congratulations Phoenix, you just dodged a big career bullet. And you experienced the tip of the iceberg. From what you say about your interview experience you would have been truly horrified after a week’s employment there.
As for your interviewer – the poor chap will be a sales manager who has to double up as an HR person and a trainer because Marcus won’t pay the salary to employ one. He is employed in a liar’s academy and like many managers and GM’s at Marcus Evans who have been there too long, has been seduced by that culture and it has changed his character completely. He is now an inveterate liar who can no longer tell truth from reality and no longer associates any immorality with the practice either. His friends and relatives will frequently remark how aggressive and impetuous he has become to the point of rudeness and arrogance. I was amazed at how so many people changed from when they first arrived – a year later (if they lasted that long) they were almost unrecognizeable from the person I met when they joined. As I say – you dodged a big career bullet.
Question For Nick since he seems to have the most negative to say about working at Marcus Evans…
If Marcus Evans is really that bad, why does your linkdln have you there as a Sponsorship director and manager when you don’t?
“He is a hypocrite who professes what he does not believe; not he who does not practice all he wishes or approves”
Read the thread, Meghan. He says he used to work at Marcus Evans.
Maybe you should read the thread again Tracey since ur rebuttel does not address the issue I was pointing out. I was talkig about his linkdln so maybe you should also take a look there Tracey.. looking at the thread where he says he is a former employee does not answer why Nick LIES and calls himself a current employee on his linkdln.
Anything to say nick or you going to let Tracey speak for you? You are
lying about currently working there so what else are you lying about?
i too was a former employee & yes, these people are complete scam artists. First off,they don’t tell you that you only get paid once a month. then when it is time to get paid, something happens to the paychecks. to top it off, when i decided to quit because i felt i was compromising my ethics & intergrity, they tried to rip me off & not pay me. I had to tell IRA (the manager in NYC) to his face that i would kick his ass, then he decided to pay me. stay away people – dont not buy as a customer & do not work for them as an employee.
and, by the way, i’m certain that most of the opposition here on this site are exisitng employees of ME trying to discount the TRUTH.
Meghan – The LinkedIn profile I viewed appears to be abandoned, which would lead me to believe that is why Nick has not updated it. I suspect that LinkedIn account is tied to his old Marcus Evans email address, so he is unable to reset the password.
What is your position at Marcus Evans, Meghan?
Interesting stuff…. So … How many countries is this company in? does the product they sell really not work??
REPLY TO MEGHAN
Rather difficult since your post was almos timpossible ot understand. Let’s take your question: “If Marcus Evans is really that bad, why does your linkdln have you there as a Sponsorship director and manager when you don’t?”
1. When I don’t what ???
2. Because I WAS a Sponsorship Manager at Marcus Evans (!?). That’s why I can speak from experience rather than speculation
Where the quote from at the end of your post coems from I have no idea nor what relevance it has. If you would kindly make your comments clearer it would be easier to answer them.
NO I DO NOT. Do you know how to read a Linked in Profile??
FOR TRACEY COHEN
I have just checked my Linked in profile. Meghan is just plai nwrong. It clearly shows my current position and that my M.E position is previous and even states the dates.
I don’t know what Meghan is talking about. More to the point I regret to say she doesn’t either.
well, tracy…..they are in 45 countries….every sales based organization on earth uses a scripted sales pitch….you created hoopla over answering your phone and hearing the same thing twice, why werent you just like 99% of the other people they call and just hang up or say no?
daphs
As I explained, the lies were what led me to do a little research on the company. Lo and behold, I printed this not-so-bad article about what I found, and the company came at me with a full court press to get me to take it down. Why do they care so much? What are they trying to hide? You can read all about their antics in my follow-up articles on Marcus Evans.
Marcus Evans is indeed, a scam artist company. People who remain in this company are usually unethical, rude scum of the earth. NOTHING is taboo in the company as long as you make money. you can fake trainer profiles, sleep with whoever you like, take lines of coke in the meeting rooms.
Their events are fakes.. in all respects i.e. number of delegates.. speakers, etc etc.
STAY AWAY
I endorse the sentiment STAY AWAY. The problem is that the Marcus Evans solicitors are deceitful, misrepresenting who they are and what they are offering. We researched them thoroughly several years ago, determined that they are a scam and sent them several formal notices not to solicit our people. But they keep calling. I received a call February 8 from someone who identified himself as Perry Lal. He said he was from the “Tax Officers Group” and needed to hire counsel in our region to pursue tax appeals for several named companies. It took me three or four questions before I concluded that he was just pushing a variant of the Marcus Evans standard phone script.